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HelpCharnte
There is a little girl in my son's music class, and her name is Charnte (pronounced Shah-n-tay). Her mother is Afrikaans (sp?), and highly educated.
I am struck at why a woman so educated and articulate would name her child this awful seemingly made up name (or at the least made up spelling). Then I thought perhaps this is an Afrikaans name (but I doubt it, because isn't the Afrikaans language derived from Dutch? And Charnte seems more "french" than Dutch anyway.)
Or do you think it is derived from the French enchante, with an "r" put in there just to ensure pronunciation?
And unfortunately I don't know her well enough to ask any of these questions.
What are you thoughts on this?
I am struck at why a woman so educated and articulate would name her child this awful seemingly made up name (or at the least made up spelling). Then I thought perhaps this is an Afrikaans name (but I doubt it, because isn't the Afrikaans language derived from Dutch? And Charnte seems more "french" than Dutch anyway.)
Or do you think it is derived from the French enchante, with an "r" put in there just to ensure pronunciation?
And unfortunately I don't know her well enough to ask any of these questions.
What are you thoughts on this?
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I would assume it came from the French "chanter," meaning "to sing," but with an R in there because of the rhotic/non-rhotic language thing.
Chanter or Chanté wouldn't be my thing at all, but it doesn't strike me as too awful. Charnte quite honestly looks hideous to me, but it'd be pronounced CHARRRN-tay if it was from around here, and that sounds awfuller than awful to me. ;) So it's kind of an unconscious "NO PLEASE NO" reaction from me.
I think that if you phrased the question politely ("Your daughter's name is so interesting/pretty! How did you come up with it?"), you could ask her without worrying about knowing her well enough.
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Chanter or Chanté wouldn't be my thing at all, but it doesn't strike me as too awful. Charnte quite honestly looks hideous to me, but it'd be pronounced CHARRRN-tay if it was from around here, and that sounds awfuller than awful to me. ;) So it's kind of an unconscious "NO PLEASE NO" reaction from me.
I think that if you phrased the question politely ("Your daughter's name is so interesting/pretty! How did you come up with it?"), you could ask her without worrying about knowing her well enough.
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I might try it.
I agree Chante would have been... acceptable. It's the 'r' that bothers me.
If she smiles much at the next lesson I might try and ask (this lady is a strange mix of aloofness and arrogance, but seems to be very fond of children - which doesn't make her very approachable by adults!), and that's why the 'created' name of Charnte seems so odd a choice for her.
I agree Chante would have been... acceptable. It's the 'r' that bothers me.
If she smiles much at the next lesson I might try and ask (this lady is a strange mix of aloofness and arrogance, but seems to be very fond of children - which doesn't make her very approachable by adults!), and that's why the 'created' name of Charnte seems so odd a choice for her.
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Affrikaans is a Dutch-based language, which is very similar to German. And I know in German, they tend not to enunciate the R at the end of a word. Similar to how a posh British person or a Bostonian would pronounce the end of Mother (like MUTH-a). So the chances are, in her Afrikaans accent, and I can imagine it being said this way now actually, that the r is being pronounced, but it's very light and the A is drawn out. That took me a second to figure out, but it makes the perfect sense...I'm kind of a language dork as well as a namenerd lol.
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